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Vince Barr: You started out the year coaching Pete but after the Australian
Open, he changed coaches. What happened? Was there a miscommunication as
to how long you were going to be with him?

Tom Gullikson: Well, no. Pete called me about three weeks after Australia
and basically said, "Tom, thanks for going down to Australia and everything
but I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re too good of friends to really
be player and coach. I’d just rather stay good friends." He just felt
that at this point in his career, he really needed a coach who wasn’t his
friend. So he wanted to kind of divorce the friendship part from the coaching
relationship. So I said, "That’s fine. I don’t need to travel 30 weeks
a year anyway and I’m happy to be your friend." So we parted as friends.

VB: Do you still talk to him on a regular basis?

TG: Not that much on a regular basis but he and Andy Roddick played an
exhibition down in Dallas for the Tim & Tom Gullikson Foundation the
Friday before LA. We sold out the house and I had a great chat with Pete
down there. It was good to see him again after Wimbledon. They played a
great match; Andy won 5-7, 6-3, 6-4. When they introduced Pete before the
match, he got about a three-minute standing ovation. He really felt good
about it. Hopefully, it will help get him going this summer.

VB: Tell us about your foundation. Samprasfanz has been one of the contributors
to your organization.

TG: Our foundation is all about care and support. When Tim was diagnosed
with a brain tumor in 1995 he said, "Tom, I’m really lucky. I’ve got
great family support, got friends virtually all over the world cheering
for me. I’ve got the best doctors you could possibly have. But 80-90% of
the people who get diagnosed with brain cancer don’t have the kind of support
system I’ve got. So, I’d really like to start a foundation and focus on
care and support for not only the brain tumor patient but the family."
He saw what a dramatic effect it had on his two small kids and his wife
and all his whole family. That’s what we’re about: care and support. We’ve
raised over $2 Million since 1995 and we’ve given over $1 Million to care
and support programs and we fund a college scholarship program every year
for a very deserving brain cancer patient themselves or children of brain
cancer patients. So, we do a lot of good things for very needy people.

VB: Is Pete done winning majors? His Wimbledon loss this year was rather
shocking.

TG: Well, Pete had a pretty candid press conference down in Dallas at our
foundation event. And he said some very interesting things. At the press
conference, he said, "I’m in a position that I’ve never been in before.
I’ve got to make a comeback." Now he’s 0-31 (as far as winning titles
since Wimbledon 2000) and his ranking has dropped quite a bit. He’s in a
position where he’s not the favorite anymore. After virtually dominating
the men’s game for six straight years at # 1, winning 13 Slams. He really
feels in his heart that he’s got one or two Grand Slams left in him. And
he’s in a position now where he really has to make a comeback. He’s committed
to it; he certainly wants to work for it. Whether he attains it or not that’s
to be seen. He seemed to me very focused and very committed on trying to
make a comeback. I think a comeback starts when you admit that you need
to make one. And he did that.

VB: Several players have commented on Pete’s game recently. Todd Woodbridge
said that he could read Pete’s serve better than he ever has, that it might
have lost a little bit of its unpredictability. Agassi thought Pete’s foot
speed was a bit slower. Have you noticed anything lacking from a technical
standpoint in Pete’s game that might help explain his rut? Is it strategy?
He’s always been a high risk, high reward-type of player, being real aggressive
on his shots and things like that. What are your observations?

TG: Well, I think he needs to return better. That’s # 1. He needs to move
a little better, I would agree with Andre there. I don’t think he’s moving
quite as well and when you play a really aggressive, high-risk attacking
game, you’ve got to be in great shape to cover that net because these guys
all have great passing shots, great topspin lobs. They can run down your
volleys and approach shots pretty well. To play the serve and volley, approach
and volley game, you’ve got to be in great shape. So, movement is certainly
one issue. And I would say returning serve a little bit better to get into
more return games is an issue as well.

VB: What about the Canas match? Break that down for us, how does he match-up
against him?

TG: All these matches in this masters series are pretty tough. Canas is
playing pretty well. He’s in the semifinals this week in Toronto (before
he won the title there). He can gain a lot of confidence from his result
there (to use in his match against Pete); on the other hand, he might be
tired from playing so many matches there and maybe Pete can jump on him
if he’s a little bit tired from Canada. But he’s a young guy and he’s very
fit. So, Pete needs to play an aggressive, dictating game and really take
it to him. He’s not going to wear him down rallying from the back of the
court. I think he just needs to play that aggressive game. Really dictate
as much as he can.

VB: Serve and Volley?

TG: Absolutely. He’s got to play steady enough from the back but when he
gets his chance, he’s got to take it, either by hitting the big forehand
or hitting the approach and getting in.

VB: Yvgeny Kafelnikov thought that Pete should retire after he lost that
grass court match with Alex Corretja in the Davis Cup quarterfinals earlier
this year. Do you agree with Yvgeny’s assessment that Pete should retire
because he was only 'embarrassing himself'?

TG: I think that people should choose their own time, when they want to
retire, or what they want to do. I don’t think it’s any of Kafelnikov’s
business what Pete does. Just like it’s not any of Pete’s business what
Kafelnikov does. And I’m sure Pete could care less what Kafelnikov does.
Pete, like I said, believes that he’s got another Slam or two left in him
and he’s going to try to go after that. And that’s a very worthwhile pursuit
for him. I think the moment he realizes, if in fact that doesn’t come true,
the moment he realizes in his heart that he’s not going to be a contender
to win a Grand Slam, I think he’ll be gone. He doesn’t need money. He’s
got a beautiful wife, a beautiful home in Los Angeles, and he’s got nothing
to prove, he’s probably the greatest player of all time. I think he deserves
to pick his own time frame. And I don’t think anybody, whether it’s other
players or the press should even comment on it. It’s ridiculous.

VB: As a former professional athlete yourself, what factors did you consider
in deciding to hang up your racquets?

TG: Well, I played until I was 35 but I started late; I started when I
was 24. Tim and I graduated from college; he took a teaching job at the
Kettering Tennis Center in Dayton, Ohio. I took a job at Crystal Lake, which
is a suburb of Chicago. So we actually talked for a couple of years before
we went on the Tour. But I played from age 24 to 35 and that was the time
when my oldest daughter was going into school. I played for 11 years and
I got to the 3rd round of the US Open when I was 35 years old. So I was
still playing ok, but it was time to be with the family more; I had two
young daughters and I wanted to be with my family more.

VB: What do you think about our chances in the Davis Cup next month?

TG: I would have to say we’re the underdogs. I think Patrick (McEnroe,
Davis Cup captain) can field a very competitive team. You know, certainly,
we have a chance to win it. You have to slightly favor the French. I understand
Agassi has ruled himself out. I know they asked him a little bit after their
second round win and he said he didn’t feel right coming into the semis
when all the other guys have done all the dirty work to get to the semis.
And I think he’s given, Andre has given a lot to the Davis Cup over the
years and I just can’t do well on the Tour and play Davis Cup.

VB: That’s what Pete said all those years and the public and press blasted
him

TG: It’s a very fair comment, I think. So, obviously, Andy’s going to be
there, Pete will probably be there and who knows? James Blake? Maybe. Todd
Martin? Maybe. He’s got Gambill, who’s playing well but he doesn’t play
too well on the clay, historically. So, we’ve got some options. I think
we can win the match but I’d have to favor France a little bit.

VB: Talk about some of your highlights from those years where you captained
the squad. Obviously, you’ve got the 1995 title and I was at the 1997 semi-finals
in Washington, D.C. against Australia.

TG: That was one of the great Davis Cup matches that I was involved in;
’97 we beat Australia 4-1 in the semis; Rafter just won the US Open. And
I will say that Sampras played the best tennis I’ve ever had the privilege
to witness: the last three sets against Rafter. You know, the first set
was incredible tennis, (Pete) lost in a tiebreaker, they both played great.
Rafter was hitting diving volleys and overheads and he was just all over
the net. And Pete had a bunch of break points and a couple of set points.
And I just told Pete after the first set, “Pete, you know, you were really
unlucky to lose the first set, but if you can raise your level up a little
bit here. You’re coming very close to breaking him almost every time he
serves. I mean, if you can just raise your level a little bit, you could
really break this guy down. And that’s exactly what he did; he won the next
two sets 6-1, 6-2 and played flawless tennis. His winner to error ratio
was like four winners for every error. It was the most high quality tennis
I’ve ever witnessed. And then he closed out the match 6-4 in the fourth
and it was just a great experience.

VB: I recall that Australian Davis Cup captain John Newcomb’s strategy
for winning the tie was to beat Michael Chang twice and take the doubles
point. Before play even started, they had basically conceded the matches
against Pete. You also put Pete in doubles with Todd Martin.

TG: We almost got the doubles point

VB: And you actually won the first set, I think

TG: We were up a set and a break and we had set point in the 2nd set. We
came real close to winning the doubles and Chang actually made some great
adjustments. You know, he lost to Rafter there at the U.S. Open (in the
1997 Semifinals by a score of 6-3, 6-3, 6-4) and was really disappointed,
losing that match. We kind of watched tapes of that match a little bit and
he made some really good adjustments, to take the ball earlier on the return,
use more lobs, because Rafter gets so close (to the net) and hit passing
shots behind him because Rafter moves to the open court so well. So we made
about three or four tactical adjustments and Michael executed unbelievably
well and won that first point for us (6-4, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4); and then Pete
killed Philippoussis in the second match --- three straight sets easy (6-1,
6-2, 7-6(5)), so, obviously, we were in a great position from Day 1 on.

VB: Since Pete’s claim to fame will undoubtedly be his seven Wimbledon
championships, your brother Tim obviously had a huge role in enabling Pete
to accomplish what he has done at the All England Lawn and Tennis Club.
What adjustments in Pete’s game did Tim make which paved the way for Pete’s
success over there?

TG: Well, I think one of Pete’s early problems on grass, I think his record
was maybe one win and three losses at Wimbledon before Tim started working
with him, he had a hard time returning serve off his backhand. He took too
big a swing and his swing path was too vertical. He was coming straight
up on the ball, just wasn’t making good contact with the backhand return
most of the time. And Tim taught him how to block the return, how to chip
it and you know, just all about competing. I think that when Tim started
working with Pete, Pete was obviously a great striker of the ball, but he
wasn’t a great competitor, really. I think Tim, when he was at his best,
playing wise, he wasn’t a great striker of the ball, but he was a great
competitor. And I think that Tim made Pete understand that on the days when
he wasn’t striking the ball well, he still had to figure out a way to win
the match. And Pete certainly was one of the top three or four athletes
on the Tour. And Tim just used to say, "Ok, Pete, put on your blue
collar, go to work, use your athletic ability, grind a little bit, when
you’re not striking it perfectly clean every time like you want to."
I think those are the main points he added, certainly, to his grass court
game and his overall competitiveness.

VB: Is grass the hardest surface for an American to play on or is it clay?
What types of things do you have to do to adjust to the different surfaces?

TG: Well, you know, obviously grass is a surface that the boys don’t play
on much at all anymore. They might play one or two or possibly three tournaments
a year on it. So their games are more suited, obviously, for hard courts
or indoors. And most of the Americans don’t grow up on clay. So, unless
you’re from Florida, where you’d play a lot on clay, clay is kind of a tough
surface for the Americans over the years. The adjustments you need, one
is a mental adjustment. You know, you’re going to get some bad bounces;
you need to really try to shorten the points a little bit. You need to adjust
your swings, you can’t take the huge swings on grass that you might on a
slow hard court or a clay court. So, you really need to make some adjustments
to your game and also some adjustments to your thinking.

VB: There have been some suggestions to make Davis Cup better such as
collapsing the schedule to a one-month period, making the competition every
other year, like professional golf’s Ryder Cup, perhaps even moving the
whole tournament to one neutral site. Do you favor any of those changes
and do you think any of them will ever happen?

TG: I would favor every other year. I think if you look at this year, they
had the World Cup soccer and soccer is the most popular sport in the world.
And they play once every four years. To play Davis Cup every year is almost
impossible with the schedule that these guys play on the ATP Tour, including
the Grand Slams. Throw in Davis Cup and these guys never have any time off.
I think every other year would do it. I’m not a big fan of condensing it
into one month in one area, really. I think the beauty of Davis Cup has
always been the home and away format and the away ties are some of my most
memorable ties as Davis Cup captain. When we go to a foreign country and
win, on their soil, with their surface against their crowd and everything.
I would hate to see it go to one side and play at a neutral site; I think
it would lose a lot of flavor, I think.

VB: Talk about the Davis Cup championship we got in 1995, obviously, the
highlight of your tenure as captain. Was there any behind the scenes things
that perhaps many people don’t know about. Was there any gamesmanship by
the Russians, etc? On the ESPN highlights all the time, we’ll see Pete cramping
and being dragged off the court by you.

TG: First of all, Kafelnikov made an interesting comment to the press that
week of practice building up to the final. He basically said that even though
Pete is # 1 in the world, Courier is the one we really fear because he’s
won the French twice; he’s a great clay court player. He’s the one we’ve
got to worry about; he’s going to be the leader of their team.

Pete, to that point, hadn’t had a great run on clay that much, he won matches
on clay but it was never winning huge tournaments or anything. And you know,
Pete was the # 1 player in the world at that time; so, I think Pete kind
of took that as a challenge. Ok, I’m going to play some pretty good stuff
and actually got us off to a great start.

He played (Andrei) Chesnokov
in the first match. It was a hell of a match, Pete won 6-4 in the 5th, and
on match point, he hit a short ball on his forehand and hit like a big approach
down the line that ended up being a winner. Pete was running in to hit a
volley and just lifted up his arms, you know, when he knew the match was
over, in victory, and just had a full body cramp all over his body, and
just collapsed on the court and the doctor and the trainer and I carried
him off the court and that was like the last thing the Russians saw of Pete,
you know, us carrying him off the court.

Then Kafelnikov played a really good match against Courier and beat Courier.
You know, just played too well. Jim’s the kind of guy, he didn’t really
like sitting in the locker room waiting for three, four hours to play. You
know, he prepares so well. He likes to get out there.

But anyway, so that left us at one-all and I had a little decision to make
because the original doubles plan was for Todd Martin to play with Ritchie
Reneberg and for whatever reason, they weren’t playing particularly well
in doubles in practice. They were losing to our practice partner and one
of the coaches, Craig Boynton (laughing). We were having a real struggle
in the doubles and I knew I needed to make a change.

Pete doesn’t really like to play doubles that much but, obviously, could
be a great doubles player if he wanted to be. In fact, he and Courier won
the Italian Championships when they were both 19 years old. So, Pete had
to get the full body massage and IV fluids and everything after the match.

That night, about 9 o’clock, he’s in the training room, getting a rub,
you know, and I walked up to him and said "Pete, what would you think
about playing some doubles tomorrow?" And he kind of looked at me like
I was nuts. Like "Doubles? Didn’t you see me collapse on the court?"
And he goes, "Well, I haven’t really given that a lot of thought but
you know, let me wake up tomorrow and see how I feel." He said, "Why
don’t you just get Todd and Ritchie ready to play and then I’ll hit some
afterward and see how I feel."

I talked to Todd and Ritchie and said, you know, I’m considering bringing
Pete in here to play doubles and I was going to make Ritchie the odd man
out and I was going to put Todd in with Pete. Ritchie was a team guy; he
was a consummate professional. He played great Davis Cup for us, he was
a team guy, didn’t have an ego. Ritchie said "Whatever you want to
do is fine with me; if you want to put Pete in for me, that’s great, I’ll
be the biggest cheerleader you’ve ever seen."

So, I hit with Pete for about half an hour after Todd and Ritchie hit.
So we were sitting by the court and I said, "Well, what do you think,
Pete?" And he said, "Well, I’m pretty stiff but it’s up to you."
And I said, "You’re in."

We made the switch and Todd and Pete came out. You have to let the referee
know an hour before the match and then they tell the other team, an hour
before the match, that you’ve made the change. The Russian crowd was really
surprised to see Sampras in the doubles, because their last image was him
being dragged off the court in a full body cramp.

So, we got down a break early in the match, you know, Pete hadn’t played
much doubles in awhile and Todd and Pete were just kind of getting a feel
for each other out there. We got down a break early. We were playing Kafelnikov,
who’s obviously a very good doubles player and Andrei Olhovskiy, who’s also
a very good doubles player, and they were a team at the time. So, they had
played a lot together and had a lot of success. And I remember distinctly
we had a break point to get back to even in the first set and I think Olhovskiy
had a fairly high volley at the net that he could have just nailed right
down the middle and put away. Instead of nailing it, he kind of angled it,
played a cuter shot and Pete ended running it down and hitting a winner
on it. And we broke. And then I saw Kafelnikov give Olhovskiy a dirty look
like "what are you doing?"

Fom that point on, the momentum of the match really changed. We ended up
winning the first set, breaking again at 7-5. And then we won like 1 &
2 afterward; they had something negative going on there and they kind of
lost a little heart. So we snuck out the doubles point with some great play
from Todd & Pete.

And then match four was obviously Sampras & Kafelnikov and I think
Pete realized that he didn’t have 100% energy to put into the match so he
knew he had to come out strong, out of the gates. He played an incredible
match and won in three straight sets. He won the first set easy and he had
some break points early in the second set, he had something like 15-40 to
break but he didn’t convert.

At the changeover, he was sitting next to me and said "Gully, you’ve
got to stop twitching." And I said, "Pete, what do you mean?"
Then he said "Those two break points I had in the last game, every
time I hit the ball, I could see you kind of flinch." (Gully is laughing
at this point). And I said, "Geeze, Pete, no wonder you’re number 1
in the world; you can play tennis and see what’s going on at the side of
the court at the same time!"

So I said, "OK, Pete, I promise that if you convert, I’ll be still
on the sideline."

VB: That’s pretty funny.

TG: Yeah, so we go out, Pete wins the second set pretty easy and the third
set, he’s starting to get a little tired. Kafelnikov picks up his game;
you know, Pete’s up two sets to love but you can see Kafelnikov getting
a little momentum. So we go into a tiebreaker and Pete gets up a mini-break,
then on match point, I’ll never forget it, he’s serving at 6-5 in the breaker,
he hit about a 130 mile-per-hour ace right down the T to win the Davis Cup
for us. It was really special; Pete played fantastic, it was ’95, so Tim
was sick, you know, Tim had the brain cancer

VB: Was he there?

TG: No, he was not there, no, but I had talked to him a lot during the
week and it was just a pretty special moment. It was a great team effort,
obviously, by all the guys who were there. We all worked hard. In particular,
Pete was phenomenal. He was absolutely phenomenal. It was December 2nd and
we come back to the States and nobody cared.

VB: That was my next question.

VB: No White House visit?

TG: No White House visit, virtually not anything in any of the magazines,
hardly. And you know, college football is going on and pro basketball and
Pete almost kills himself to win the Davis Cup and next year, I had a lot
of trouble recruiting guys for the team. His quote was I didn’t expect a
ticker tape parade down Madison Avenue but I would think that it (winning
the Davis Cup) would have been a little blip on the radar screen of American
sport. In ’96, I had a real hard time recruiting. You know, Pete had just
given so much of himself and it’s like nobody cared, except for us, in the
immediate tennis family

VB: I cared!

TG: And the real die-hard American tennis fan cared but we got virtually
no (other) notice at all in public.

VB: Pete did mention that one reward he got from winning the Cup was that
he got to play Augusta National (where professional golf’s Masters is played
every year). That’s pretty impressive since they don’t let just anyone play
on that course!

TG: Yeah, we got to play there. The USTA asked me "What can we do
for the guys that would be special to them?" And I said, "Well,
they all like to play golf, why don’t you get us on Augusta?" And they
arranged for it in ‘96 but we got an ice storm on the day we were supposed
to go up. But then we ended up playing in ‘97, so we did get on Augusta,
which was pretty nice. But it was just a great tie all the way around. Great
effort. Andre actually had played on the team that year some and had done
a good job for us and he was injured. But he made the trip all the way over
from Vegas, all the way over to Moscow, just to support the team, which
was really nice because he, obviously, wasn’t playing. But he wanted to
be there, to support the guys so he made a special effort to make the trip
and be there when we won the Cup. So, it was really a special time for American
tennis, I think."

VB: Did the Russians do anything with the court, like add extra water
to it, to give them an unfair advantage? Obviously, if they did that, it
would make the slow clay even slower.

TG: They tried to add extra water, but the referee had control of the watering
of the court. And they wanted to get it really slow for us, but the referee,
Stefan Fransson from Sweden, wouldn’t allow them to water it any more than
what was needed."

VB: Would you ever want to go back and be the captain of the American
Davis Cup team again, if you were asked?

TG: You know, I think that my time has passed. You know, I was captain
for six years and it was an absolute privilege and honor to be the captain
of the U.S. Davis Cup team and I enjoyed every minute of it. You know, we’ve
got a lot of qualified people that would make excellent captains, so, I’ll
always be very supportive of the Davis Cup, obviously, and any American
captain who wants to do it.